Birth of the yellow paper

MANILA, Philippines - It has been said that every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

The Philippine STAR founder Betty Go-Belmonte was beginning to ease herself from journalism work after quietly ending her ties with the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It was the paper she co-founded in 1985 in reaction to the dramatic turn of events. Ferdinand Marcos had called for a snap election, the results of which compelled her to band together with veteran newsmen Max Soliven, Art Borjal, Louie Beltran, Eugenia Apostol and Florangel Braid to report the true state and situation of the country, and help Ninoy Aquino’s widow Cory fight the dictatorship.

The Inquirer hit the streets on Dec. 9, 1985, becoming the no. 1 newspaper in no time, carried as it was by the crest of the anti-Marcos sentiment. When the People Power Revolution swept the nation in February 1986, eventually toppling the more than 20-year dictatorship, Soliven would be penning his columns from the barricades, while Mrs. Belmonte would be seen standing in front of the gates of Camp Crame distributing the paper in her high heels.

Despite the success of the paper, which was printing as many as 340,000 copies a day, differences in priorities had put a wedge between the founders. Mrs. Belmonte had wanted to expand the circulation and continue to be supportive of the Cory Aquino administration in its infancy years given that some Marcos sympathizers still wielded influence.

“It was also her baby as she owned 50 per cent of it,” recalls her son, STAR president and CEO Miguel Belmonte. “She invested money, printing equipment and an office.” The office and press machines belonged to the Belmonte family business named Daily Star, which printed Bibles and government-commissioned textbooks.

Former President Corazon Aquino with Mrs. Belmonte

Not too long after her departure, Soliven, Borjal and Beltran showed up at her home. “These other individuals did not agree with the priorities of the other paper, so they also left and approach my mom, who was already living quietly.They said,‘Let’s put up another paper and give the young Cory Aquino government support. That’s how they got my mom interested because she really wanted to help her friend at the end of the day,” relates Belmonte.

Nevertheless, to say that it was a risky proposition was an understatement. There were already 22 other papers circulated at that time – would there be room for one more?

Reflective of her nature as a devout Christian, Mrs. Belmonte turned to the Bible for spiritual guidance and the first page she opened was the reading on the three wise men that traveled from afar to visit the infant Jesus on the manger.

It was the encouragement that she needed.

The Philippine STAR was finally born on July 28, 1986.

How The STAR would look, Mrs. Belmonte made it no secret: Its prominent color took inspiration from the yellow fever. Through the years, the logo of The STAR would assume several changes, adopting the color of gray and then blue, but the yellow would remain as its signature color.

“It was really to show which side we were on,” Belmonte says.

For those who had the fortune of witnessing Mrs. Belmonte’s very close and seemingly long-standing friendship with Mrs. Aquino, they would hardly imagine that it was only forged after the assassination of the latter’s senator-husband, Ninoy. Mrs. Belmonte’s only daughter Joy was the classmate of Kris, the youngest daughter of Cory, at Poveda.

When Ninoy was murdered on Aug. 21, 1983, Joy and her classmates decided to go to the wake to offer condolences, and Mrs. Belmonte wrote a personal letter to Cory, whom she had never met, let alone known personally.

To this day, nobody in the Belmonte family is privy to the contents of that letter, but it must have thoroughly touched the grieving widow, for what commenced afterwards was a friendship that stayed solid and sturdy amid their places in Philippine society and up until Mrs. Belmonte’s death in 1994.

More than the support it gave to the struggling new government, the birth of The STAR also stood to symbolize the fresh beginnings and possibilities that the country faced, and Betty Go-Belmonte made sure that the paper was to be a media organization that would foster an environment that would aid in nation-building at that most crucial, if not perilous, time.

Belmonte shares, “My mother always had a positive outlook. She always tried to look at the positive side in people and in events, and the flavor naturally came out in the paper.That’s why The STAR is happy and proud to have a good balance of both positive as well as negative news to this day.”

He adds, “As The STAR has reached its 25th year and its level of success, not once did we launch a personal attack on anyone, more so, on a public official. There are a few libel cases here and there, but we have no enemies. To be read by millions and not have enemies – that for me is quite an achievement.”

Today, The STAR has grown to be a leading and most trusted print voice in the country. The milestone, incidentally, is commemorated in the administration of President Noynoy Aquino, son of the very figure acknowledged as having been instrumental for this paper’s beginnings.

“No doubt, 25 years is a milestone, and that it happens under the administration of P-Noy means that we’ve come full circle,” Belmonte states.

But as The STAR still has its work cut out in an era of evolutions and revolutions, its journey continues.